Musings & Adventures of Two New England Rose Gardeners

Two Roses Here to Stay

Rose gardening can sometimes be like a science project and our sustainable rose garden serves as our laboratory. What roses will thrive and be black spot resistant? What roses will give us the number of blooms and the form we like? Sometimes the answers are personal, but in the case of the newest additions to our no-spray garden, Earth Song and Kiss Me have passed the test and have earned their places in our garden.

Earth Song and Yarrow

In August 2013, I posted about Earth Song, a Griffith Buck grandiflora introduced in 1975. Last season it produced beautiful, large, saturated pink blooms and this season it was even more proliferous. In June this year, Earth Song rewarded us with a non-stop first bloom with many sprays of 3-5 blooms on a bush with an upright habit that has grown to about 4 ft. tall. I had Mike plant yellow yarrow behind it and once the yarrow had an explosion of growth, I was really happy with the colors and texture that the two plants provided together. Earth Song is well into its second bloom cycle and shows very little black spot.

Kiss Me

Kiss Me is also classified as a grandiflora, but has more of a rounded, shrub-like habit. What Mike and I both love about this rose is its color – a medium pink that is more saturated and a bit on the coral side than your run-of-the-mill medium pink – and its form. The flowers are round with ruffled, scalloped edges with a blush of bright yellow around its yellow stamens. We had some fantastic blooms in June; in fact Mike and I won Best of Class for Floribunda Spray with Kiss Me in the Rhode Island Rose Society Rose Show on June 14. Kiss Me is one of Ping Lim’s Easy Elegance Collection.

Along with the other easy care, disease resistant roses we have, Earth Song and Kiss Me are here to stay in our garden.

2 Responses

I love roses unfortnantly I have little success in finding the right roses for my area, except for the rugosas, and semi wilds. I have a couple of them out there if they do not survive this winter with minimal protection I am giving up roses forever. I have purple splash I bought this year, my new dawn had a lot of die back barly survived, hopfully it will bounce back to the original size, my davies shrub (which I ordered the climbing version) which was the wrong rose ordered anyway died on me, this winter and the stress of me moving it was to much. I have lost so many roses to winter, or other kinds of stresses or they do not perform as the catalog says they should I can’t afford to keep buying all these roses only to have htem die on me because they just cant cope with some stress, maybe it is to wet? to cold? to hot, the soil conditions not good (even tho I amend it with rotted compost) many of them I bought in our area they are supposed to do well here, of course I see a lot of roses sold like at lowes or home depot or garden centers but yet I seldom see these same roses in people’s yards, wonder what happens to them. And don’t get me started on how many roses I ordered were not the ones I ordered, I get frustrated at garden centers catalogs and even specialty stores that only deal with roses sending me the wrong ones, you cant know until they have a chance to grow and flower, the only roses I see everywhere (and it is redundant) is the explorer shrubs mostly the red and dark pinks, yuck, it is overwhelming. I have to have variety, not the same old same old. I guess others get tired and only buy sure roses, the classic shrubs. I love my rugosas do not misunderstand me, but my golden gate did not bloom but I have a lot of beautiful growth, (I got one bloom last year so I know it is at least yellow) my yellow rugosa is doing wonderfully and the flowers are beautiful. so I am guessing the yellow climber is not a golden gate. I am frustrated and will start to look into other ways to get constant color in my yard, (my hortatunias provide color all summer long) my annuals I get and my black eyed susands and cosmos, (which came back from last years planting) passion flower is doing well despite the cold winter I have crape myrtles getting ready to bloom, (more shurbs then trees my one tree died from the cold last year) oh and I am loving my scarlet runner bean, it is beautiful and the humming birds just love it.

So sorry to hear of your difficulty with roses. The most important step in growing roses is selecting the right varieties for your area. Here are some things to consider:
Make sure the varieties are winter hardy to your zone. If you let me know what zone you’re in, I can suggest some roses. Earth Song is hardy to Zones 3/4 so it should work.
Make sure to plant disease resistant roses. If roses develop black spot and drop their leaves, then they are less likely to survive hard winters.
Most important: make sure you plant the bud union of the rose below ground – how many inches below depends on what plant hardiness zone you’re in. Here in Rhode Island, we’re in Zone 6 and we plant the bud union 2” below soil level. In colder areas, the bud union should be planted deeper.
I hope these suggestions help.

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